


Late

by InsominiacArrest



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Love Story, Past childhood friends, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 05:19:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8520016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsominiacArrest/pseuds/InsominiacArrest
Summary: Four times Marceline is late and four times PB sort of helps a college AU love story





	

Marceline was trying to get her paper in by the time the clock struck midnight, it was like some sort of bizarre cinderella story where her grade turned into a pumpkin at the end of the night.

Marceline was almost reaching the word count and ready to actually edit it when she starts cursing at her laptop battery symbol.

She starts to sweat, 7%, 3%, 1%. She could scream, “Don’t die on me now you bastard!” She clutches at her computer dramatically and watches another library patron scoot away from her.

Her laptop dies.

Marceline rushes to her feet and dances back and forth before rushing into the computer area, full of students cramming for midterms, Marceline curses.

She’s almost giving up hope to reach the deadline when she spots an open computer with nice mac interface and quiet region she frequented.

She dives to go plant herself on the chair like some sort of game of king of the mountain, and damn did she want to be queen. Of course, she sees a vision of pink hair flash before her and the seat disappears.

“Uh,” She looks down at the swath of long hair tied up in a heavy pony tail and a pair of rickety glasses on a familiar face. Marceline blinks, “What are you doing?”  
  
The girl glances up, “Oh. I didn’t see you there…” The girl tilted her head sideways and narrows her eyes, “Marceline?”  
  
It was a very long, awkward pause, they both knew they had ended up at the same college after all this time but had yet to talk.

“Well." She clears her throat, "Nice to see you again.” Marceline scratches the back of her neck.

“Likewise.” She responds curtly and Marceline cringes.

Marceline looks around, “About this computer,” Bonnie glances up, “I was sort of claiming this spot, I’m late on a paper.” She tries to explain while attempting to look ‘cooler’ than usual to assert dominance.

Bonnie hums, “Oh. Okay.” It doesn’t seem to work.  
  
“Yeah.” She raises her eyebrow to indicate Bonnie should leave.

“Well, good luck.” The girl turned away from her and Marceline’s mouth fell open.

“This was my spot.” She asserts as she jabs a finger at the desk top.  
  
“I’m using it now. I have an algorithm I need to try.” Bonnie says without looking up.

“Why?!” Marceline threw her hands up, “It’s midnight.” She sweats as she glances at the library clock.

Bonnie shakes her head, “I was coming from the gym, and it hit me…” She goes on a small tangent about coding loops.  
  
“Ugh,” Marceline throws her hands up, “I’ll fight you for it.”  
  
“What?” Bonnie looked up at that, Marceline’s face flushed.

“You heard me, my spot, my rules. Street justice.” She began to roll up her sleeves, to her surprise Bonnie snort laughs.

“Fight you?”  
  
“Yeah.” Marceline had desperate times, calling for strange measures.

“You haven’t seen me since middle school and the first thing you do is challenge me to a fist fight?” Bonnie was laughing and biting her lip.

Marceline twisted her mouth sideways, “This is a big paper.” She didn’t believe herself.

Bonnie stands up, “Here. We’ll trade. Ten minutes.”  
  
Marceline makes a face, but glances at the wall clock and sees that she was late. Bad late.

She sits down quickly and brings up the document, Bonnie looks over her shoulder. “You’re using the wrong capitalization of Romanticism.” She points out and puts her hands on the keyboard, Bonnie critiques her essay’s grammar one word at a time. It almost helped.

Bonnie glances down at her as they wrap up, “Soooo, are we still fake-married from the 7th grade?” It was almost a joke, but her face was placid.

Marceline chuckles, “If you figure out where this comma should actually go, sure.” Bonnie corrects the comma splice and they eye each other.

She gets her essay in late, but in nonetheless. Bonnie taps on her shoulder as she cheers, “Ten minutes are up.”  
  
She exhales through her nose, “Here you go your highness.”  
  
Bonnie mock-curtsies, “Thank you.”

Marceline shakes her head, “Don’t stay up too late.”  
  
“I could say the same to you,” Bonnie looks her up and down, “you look tired.” She was probably referring to the bags under her eyes.  
  
Marceline shrugs, “I’m nocturnal. Gotta graduate, gotta finish my mix CD, ect, ect.”  
  
Bonnie smiles, soft and almost relaxed as she pushes up her glasses, “Well, don’t let me keep you. I have non-sleeping things to do as well.” She turns to her computer and Marceline watches her lithe hands move over the keys momentarily.

“Yeah…see you around.” She turns away from the other girl thoughtfully.

——-

Marceline was late.

She should have expected this after taking a particularly long nap, but then again, she should have warned her bosses. This is how it was going to be.

Her car was being used by Simon today (to do God knows what) so Marceline was trekking a couple blocks to work.

That’s when it begins to rain.

“Shit.” She tries to cover her head with the book she was holding, it gets the textbook wet. “Shit.” She slips her items back in her backpack.

She begins to run, “What did I do to you?” She groans to the heavens and keeps running as the downpour sinks into her hoodie.

She starts sprinting as her watch tells her she was about to become noticeably absent, her pulse is racing like a bad drink leading to a pretty girl. Unhealthy.

She’s darting across a crosswalk when a pair of headlights glows in her direction, a large white SUV with a pristine that screamed ‘I care too much,’ approaches her, it barely slows down.

Marceline puts her hands up, “I have right of way, asshole.”  
  
She stops mid-step when the car window rolls down and pink head sticks out, “Marceline?”  
  
Marceline’s face becomes very still, “Hey.” She waves, Bonnie gives a half smile.

“You need a ride?”  
  
Marceline looks up at the rain, “Okay. I’ll take it as an apology for almost running me over.” She swings into the passenger’s seat.

Bonnie watches her closely, “maybe you should invest in an umbrella.”  
  
Marceline snorts, “My birthday is coming up princess if you want to contribute to my umbrella savings account.”

Bonnie sniffs and turns on the car engine again, “I’ll remember that.” Marceline nods slowly, she knew she would.

“Where you headed?”

Marceline points, “Petsmart, and no, it’s not as fun as it sounds.” She preempts the usual commentary.

“Whoa,” Bonnie starts cruising along, “Really? I never saw you as the animal type.”

Marceline sits up straight, “One, animals love me. Sometimes. I work with the fish.”

Bonnie gives her a side smile, “The fish?”

“The fish.” She sighs, “It’s not the ideal job but I had to leave the record store after I broke up with Ash.”  
  
Bonnie pops an eyebrow up, “I didn’t know you got with…” Bonnie clears her throat, “He was alright.”  
  
Marceline scoffs, “He was a dick.”Bonnie turned her face away to smile, “Anyway, no big deal, I spend a few hours feeding beta fish and watching dogs come in and out, it’s not bad.”

Bonnie nods, “I work at the chem lab.”  
  
“Of course.” Marceline picks at her teeth and watches for her street as the rain drums against the windshield wipers.

“But my ex isn’t there.” Bonnie seemed to be teasing her.

Marceline smiles, “You dating then?” She doesn’t know why she asked that question, her brain kicks the trigonometry out of her internally.

Bonnie’s cheeks flare up, they always did get pink easily. “Yes. Lady SCIENCE.”

“Tch,” Marceline covers her mouth as she laughs, “Nerd.” She elbows her and Bonnie elbows her back.

They roll up to the local Petsmart and Marceline nods, “Okay…well, thanks I mean.”  
  
Bonnie shrugs, “No problem. Least I could do after, uh, during the rain.”

Marceline jumps out quickly, “I’ll see you around!”

The rain is less heavy than before, she dodges into the brightly lit building.

————–

Marceline was lulling to sleep in her 11 O’clock class, the giant lecture hall blurring before her vision as she nodded off. She wasn’t a day person.

She’s resting her eyes gently when a hand lands on her shoulder, Marceline awakes with a start.

“Fuck,” she calls as she tries to whip around to face the assailant.

Bonnie is smiling down at her with her hands on her hips, “You’re in the class before mine.” She says with an interest.

Marceline tried to stifle a yawn and focuses her eyes, “yep. Guess so, funny, how life is…life.” She points out eloquently before Bonnie reaches for her hand.

“I’ll walk you to your dorm.”

“Hmm?” Marceline sits up straight, “But you have to stay for my class, I’ve missed it way too many times.”

Bonnie tilts her head, “My class just finished Marci. You were sleeping in it the whole time.”  
  
“Shit.” Marceline dances to her feet, pulling her pants up and swirling around, “Damn.”  
  
Bonnie exhales with a laugh, “Here, let’s get back. This was my last class for today.”

Marceline sighs, “I don’t even remember if she talked about theory or his weird-ass love of cabarets again.”

Bonnie helps her pick up her scattered blank notes and they take the lecture hall stairs up and into the bright sun, Marceline squints her eyes.

“Terrible.”

“The sun?”  
  
“Always.” Marceline kicks a stone, “An umbrella was a good recommendation.”

Bonnie shakes her head, “Come on, we could coffees. Or smoothies.”

Marceline raises an eyebrow, “That’s not a date is it Miss Bonnibel?”  
  
Bonnie leads them towards the center for community (cafeteria) and looks back at her, “We’re already married, remember? Not a date.”

Marceline laughs, “Okay.”

They get smoothies, strawberry and berry mix respectively and walk back into the sun, kicking a stone between them as they head towards student housing.

“Anyway, then I told him, we can’t call ourselves ‘Cult Classics’ it’s just not that cool, and he almost storms out.” Marceline told her anecdote as they walk.

Bonnie seemed to be nodding along, “Aren’t you the Scream Queens?”  
  
“We are. But Mr. C says we don’t do enough screaming to actually call ourselves that as a band, but that’s a whole other thing.” Marceline sighs, Bonnie stops in place.

Marceline towards around, “Something wrong?”  
  
“This is me.” Bonnie points at the door. “Will you be alright getting to your door?”  
  
“Uh yeah.” Marceline says plainly.

Bonnie seemed to look up at the sky and then back at her, “You still like Sky High?”  
  
“What?”

Bonnie looked away and pulled at her hands, “They just put it on netflix.” Marceline’s eyes go wide and she quickly sucks up her smoothie. “I was just remembering you liking it.” Bonnie says quickly, “And, I figured, I should meet people here after transferring.”

Marceline pats her on the shoulder, “You can’t tell anyone.”

They go in the door, Marceline falls asleep halfway through the movie and Bonnie yells at her latter for drooling on her shoulder.

Marceline doesn’t know what’s happening.

——————

Alright, if Marceline was going to explain one thing, it was not going to be running down the hall half dressed and late. It was not going to be the fact she was an hour late for her own birthday.

Explaining the meaning of life could wait, because scientists were going to have figure out this shit first.

She takes the short cut over a fence to try to make it back to her friend's apartment before it’s an hour past. Damn.

“Ugh” She almost tears her pants open falling to her knees and drags her guitar case up the stairs heavily.

She jogs down the hallway and to the apartment 201 before she notices her own phone still going off with the frequent question ‘where are you?’

Honestly? She didn’t know.

She tries to collect herself, steadying her breathing before standing upright and knocking on the door in three short raps.

“Hello?” A boys voice carries through the door.

“Finn!” Marceline cheers for a moment and tries to open the door. “Let me in.”  
  
“You made it! You’ll love the cake Jake made.” She sees the door knob wiggle.

“Hey, wait, dude.” A second voice joins theirs and the door knob stops wiggling.

“Jake,” Marceline sighs, “Come on… Let’s start this party!” She tries to call.  
  
Jake yelled-whispered, “She’s totally late, don’t let her in. Make her say a silly password or something.”

“I can hear you Jake!” Marceline calls through the door.

“Say, I’m a stinky butt who makes manure look good.”

Marceline groans, “Jake, I will put you in a headlock.”

“Wait, wait,” Marceline perks up at Bonnie’s voice, “make her say, ‘I love eating tapeworms dipped in stupi-”  
  
“No, we can do better than that.” They argue briefly.

In the end, Marceline has to say a series of weird sentences until they let her in. The final question is just ‘who do you like?’ and she yells in the hallway until they let her in.

Finn greets her at the door with LSP who was mostly trying to stuff their cans of beans into her purse and Bonnie’s dour ‘family’ friend who was muttering under his breath about house demons.

Marceline gets too many hugs, the cake is a red velvet, she has a captive audience for her new song about breaking plates on walls and gets at least three new scarves and a guitar tuner (that she didn’t need).

Marceline, being late, did have to see her party off at a pretty early as her birthday fell on a Wednesday.

“Thanks for letting us hold the party here,” Marceline says as she helps Finn pick up dishes as guests start to leave.

“No prob, we’ve wanted to do something like this at Tree Orchid for forever.” He explains as they stare at a pile of chips strewn on the floor.

“Okay, but you should leave, now.” Jake, a lanky man with bright orange hair and eyes like weirdly dark holes interjects.

“What?” Marceline glances at him.

“Bubblegum is leaving,” he whispers loudly.

“So?” Marceline puts another red cup in the trash.

“So, walk her the heck home.” He gestures to the door and Marceline reels back.

“I’m not a babysitter.” She doesn’t look up.

“Wow! Our place, our rules, time to _skedaddle_.” Jake pushes her to the door and Marceline tries to protest.

“It’s not like that!” Marceline had been watching a lot more Disney films in secret with Bonnie, but nothing to justify being pushed out the door.

“Marceline,” Bonnie turned around at the door, “are you guys…” She looks between the two of them. “Uh.”

“Marceline was just leaving.” Jake gives her a thumbs up and a wink.

Marceline sighs, “Yeah, want to walk home?”  
  
Bonnie hums, “Okay.”

They wave the boys off and start on the short walk back to student housing outside of Tree Orchid apartments.

They walk in a momentary silence as the days grows chilly with the moon peeking up on the horizon.

“Some party huh?” Marceline says as she glances at the coming cloud cover.

Bonnie snickers, “That you were late to!”

“I have my reasons.” Marceline tries to defend, “And their good reasons.” They weren’t.

“Well, anyone, I got you something to help.”  
  
“What?”  
  
Bonnie takes out a package out of her large rain coat pockets. “A day planner.”  
  
Marceline shakes a head, “That is the most you thing I’ve ever heard, even from middle school.”

Bonnie puts it in her hands, “It has little fangs on it.”  
  
Marceline smiles, “I accept it, alright. Cute.”

Bonnie laughs with a little twinkle to her eye, “Accept? Were you going to deny my present?”  
  
Marceline pokes her, “I retain the choice to accept or deny all presents.”  
  
Bonnie thwaps her, “Asshole!”

Marceline laughs and pushes her back gently, “if you say so.”  
  
“I’m not sure I should I give you your follow up present.” Bonnie turned away from her and Marceline arches her eyebrows.

“Two?” She articulates steadily.

Bonnie shrugs, “It seemed like the thing to do.”

“Dang. I’ll have to step up my Christmas game after this.” Marceline tried to think of something to give Bonnie immediately, something pink? Bonnie was reaching out towards her.

“You don’t have to-” Marceline tries to say.  
  
“Come on.” Bonnie takes her by the wrist and they walk towards her door as it begins to drizzle. They walk back into her tastefully decorated, moderately messy apartment with papers and formula’s mixed with five-hour energies and things that beeped if you looked at them too long.

Bonnie faced her, “It’s on the porch.”

“You put my present on your tiny balcony?” Marceline looks around.  
  
Bonnie sighs, “Yes. Here, close your eyes.”

Marceline hesitated, “for real…?” She murmured, Bonnie nodded.

“This is the only time to do it.”

She puts her hands up and let’s the slightly shorter girl put her hands over her eyes, “Don’t let me run into anything.”  
  
She runs into two chairs and a counter. Marceline feels for the wall and Bonnie stops.

“Okay, we’re out the balcony, keep your eyes closed though.” Bonnie instructs and then leaves her, Marceline peaks slightly to see her slipping out the balcony door to a little overhang. She takes something out.

“Okay, open them.”  
  
Marceline holds her breath, she fully opens her eyes and then lets out a squeaky laugh, Bonnie stood in the rain with a brand new umbrella. It was a black with a ribbon on the rop.

“Oh my god.”  
  
“I told you, I follow through.”  
  
Marceline shakes her head and walks through the door, “I know.”  
  
They stand under the umbrella for a second, chilled in the light breeze and still under the pitter-patter of the rain on the umbrella.

“Okay,” Marceline says softly, “I accept.”  
  
Bonnie shakes her head, “Really? Accept? This isn’t how I imagined matrimony after 7th grade.”  
  
“Oh?” Marceline smiles at her wryly. “How did you imagine it?”

Bonnie visibly bites her lip, “you know…” She laughs, “Like on TV, but gay.”  
  
Marceline nods knowingly, “Okay, let me see if I get it right then. Like TV.”

She kisses her in the rain under the umbrella. Her sleeve was getting wet, Bonnie smells like pine needles and tastes like red velvet cake. She’s soft and open and leans into the kiss, Marceline wraps her arms around her waist and they draw closer.

Her eyes are closed and it’s just like she hoped after the 7th grade before their fight.

They part and Marceline glances behind her, “Did you just pop up your leg?”  
  
Bonnie puts her foot down, “No!”

Marceline laughs, “you’re ridiculous, you put your leg up.” She laughs again “Just like the movies.”  
  
Bonnie shakes her head, “this isn’t the movies.”  
  
“Yeah,” Marceline taps their foreheads together, “it’s gayer.”

Marceline pulls her closer as the sky darkens, the sense of lateness overwhelms her, so they kiss, kiss like sparklers and the fourth of July and warm springs, the umbrella falls to the wayside.


End file.
